


We spun around trying to make sense of our luck

by Aaronlisa



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Ghosts, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Post-Canon, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 10:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12909705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaronlisa/pseuds/Aaronlisa
Summary: Richard can't let go of his past or the novel that he wrote.





	We spun around trying to make sense of our luck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [th_esaurus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/gifts).



> The title comes from the song "Ghost" by Snakadaktal. I pretty much had that song on repeat when I wrote this story. Please be aware that there are time skips in this story that aren't always clear. Things do progress in a certain order but it's not always clear that time has moved forward.

Even though he's published his story, he still writes it out. Sometimes he writes it out in a notebook, other times on his new computer but mostly he writes it out in his head. Telling and retelling the same thing over and over again. (Maybe it's why he has such a hard time writing something new.) 

Sometimes he writes himself out of the narrative. Would things still have played out the same way that they had if he wasn't a participant? 

Other times, he writes about someone else besides Bunny dying. He tints everything in shades of desperation. Other times, one of them takes the fall. Once they all did. 

When his book had first come out, the only thing that he hears from of any of them is a vintage postcard with the word _liar_ messily scribbled on it in English so that the intent is crystal clear. The dark ink is smeared, which makes the message a little less visceral but not any less accurate. 

After he gets the postcard, which is slightly battered from having followed him from California to Florida and then to New York on his book tour, he strips naked and then has a scalding hot shower as if he can wash away his sins. He fails miserably and in the end when he's laying on the crisp white sheets of the five star hotel he's staying in, he wonders if Henry is angrier about his fictional death more than the actual story being published. 

When he gets to London, he is tempted to search out the idyllic 1950s scene from the postcard. In the end, he gets drunk and gives a difficult interview. Part of it is due to his   
inebriation but it’s mainly because the interviewer kept asking about his next book instead of about his current book. 

His first book had taken him almost a decade to write. How is he supposed to know what the next one is about? How is he supposed to know if there is even another novel in him? (Especially when he hasn't really let go of the story from his first book. That night he writes the story so that it ends with them all dead.) 

The run in with Julian at a quaint tea room seems innocent until he’s flying over the Atlantic Ocean and is forced into some level of sobriety. Henry’s reach is apparently longer than he had ever thought. But at the time, it had seemed like a chance encounter. One that had seemed surreal as he was coming down from some chemical high. 

Julian was unchanged. As if nothing had affected him. As if there had been no scandal. He seemed to delight in being recognizable in Richard’s lurid story. Although he was grateful that Richard had given him a different name. The hints of who he was (of who they all were) weren’t too opaque. 

It hurt to see Julian looking so pleased. It made him want to turn back the clock and burn the manuscript before it ever saw the light of day. Julian still didn’t care that a student was dead nor did he accept any sort of responsibility for it. Instead he complained that Richard had made him seem old by mentioning his connection to Fitzgerald. Julian never mentioned Bunny by name.

Two years later and he is no longer a part of the literati. His second book is delayed, stalled and possibly never coming out. Not that anyone says anything to his face but the whispers are heard if he listens closely. Bunny haunts him.

He tells himself that Bunny is a figment of his imagination. A bit of cocaine paranoia. A frustrating result of insomnia and failure.

_Won’t call me a ghost, old boy?_

Bunny’s voice is irritatingly cheerful. And he writes it off as a demented form of homesickness. He tries to write. But his expensive pen - bought in tribute to who he wanted to be once upon a time - is dried out and he is too lazy to take the time to clean the fountain pen. Too strung out too care. 

_You know this is how Charles always said you’d wind up. A waste._

He doesn’t point out that Charles’ story in his novel was the only accurate one. He suspects that Bunny either knows or just doesn’t care. It stands to reason that the manifestation of his guilt would know what he does. And if he doesn’t then it doesn’t really matter. 

Five months later, or maybe seven, he is laying in the bath, smoking and drinking ice cold gin while trying to make sense of the invite that he has received. The gin is syrupy and coats his tongue. His damp hands have ruined the heavy paper and has smudged some of the black ink.

_Rather careless of you._

Bunny is sitting on the toilet, a book by some literary upstart that had attended Hampden with them. Richard can’t stand the book. It’s full of aimless assholes who are obsessed with coke and death. (At least they were striving for beauty even at their most pretentious.)

_So are you going?_

He wants to burn it. He wants to forget it found him. He has no desire to have a reunion with the surviving members of their group at Francis’ country home. However he is due to start teaching at Hampden in the autumn. He needs to exorcise the ghosts of his past so that he can move on. 

He needs that more than rehab. Bunny sighs. It’s a petulant sound from an insubstantial being. 

_It’s a question of matter._

Bunny does not explain as the book falls to the floor with a thud. He’s gone and Richard has no idea where Bunny fades to when he isn’t making Richard’s life hell. Nothing seems to work when it comes to making his ghost vanish - there’s not a strong enough chemical and alcohol combination that gives him respite. Bunny comes and goes as he wishes much like he had when he was alive.

In the end, he decides to go. The teaching gig is his agent's last attempt to keep him relevant while he still tries to force out the next novel. There's been a short story published in a gentleman's magazine and an article written about nostalgia and memory in another gentleman's quarterly. Rehab dried him out but the ghost of who he once was still haunts him. 

He is shaking as he drives up the once familiar road. Too many days in forced sobriety. A condition from the college and his publishers. Yet he needs the drugs and alcohol more than ever.

_Keep calm old man. It’s not as if they are plotting to kill you._

Bunny laughs hysterically at his joke and Richard almost turns around. He feels like Lady Macbeth. His novel was supposed to purge him of guilt and ghost but both have only become worse.

He turns off the ignition and knows that this is a bad idea. Still he gets out of the car and it’s not until he is on the front steps that he realizes that Bunny is still in the car. He turns around and sees Bunny sitting in the car, his face pinched into a rictus of hate with his arms folded across his chest. Richard had thought Bunny would have relished the chance to point the finger in some overly dramatic and childish way at his murderers. Instead he stays in the car. Richard turns on his heel and makes his way to the front door unsure of what to do next. Knock on it or let himself in.

The door is thrown open and Camilla is there. Soft and cold, he feels like a nervous boy under her gimlet gaze. Her lips purse into a moue of displeasure as she glances at his car. And he knows that it’s not because of the car but because of its occupant. He almost falls to his knees to kiss the hem of her skirt. Until this validation he had thought he was going crazy.

She steps back into the cool darkness of the house and he follows her leaving Bunny behind. They are silent as they walk through the house until they are at the library doorway. She gives a sharp nod at someone in the room and he swallows nervously. He feels younger and more innocent than he ever had. The room is scented with Henry’s French cigarettes, decaying books and gin. Francis hands him a gin and tonic the minute he walks in the room. 

Henry’s back is towards him. The other man is staring out the window. Richard drinks in the sight of him. His physique is the same and he is dressed in a crisp white shirt and dark charcoal slacks. It’s Henry’s bare feet that throw him off. It makes Henry more vulnerable than he has ever seen him. Even as he wrote it, Richard could never picture Henry wearing a toga made out of a bed sheet. 

“Welcome home.”

Henry’s voice is flat and sharp at the same time. Welcoming but distant. It feels like it was just yesterday that Richard was in this room with Henry. He blushes before hastily drinking down the ice cold gin and tonic. Someone refills his glass and he knows it’s the worse thing for him but he doesn’t care.

(He had written the book as a way to reach out to Henry. He had killed Henry and made him the anti-hero to rail at Henry for shutting him out. The truth is that Bunny’s death was an accident. A well timed one but accidental in nature.) 

Richard tries to breathe to get his bearings straight. Henry still hasn’t turned around and even though his dark hair is perfect, he can’t help but think that when Henry turns to face him, his once perfect face will be marred by the fictional gunshot wound. He gulps at the gin and focuses on the bubbles in the tonic, the sharp tartness of the lime and how the gin has become syrupy and thick. He casts his gaze to the floor. 

Henry clears his throat and Richard looks up at him. It’s visceral and unreal. For a moment it’s as if this is the first time he has looked at Henry. Maybe it is. He had built up Henry in his mind and lived with the image of a super man. Perfect and inhuman. Yet the man standing before is all too human. His face is both harsh like a classical marble statue but soft with the passing of time. Richard sighs.

“It’s been far too long.”

All is forgiven.

“A redistribution of matter?” Francis gently scoffs. “How callous you made us all.”

Yes callous. As well as arrogant and invincible young gods. But no one would want to read a novel where the villains don’t pay for their sins. If there is no penance. Something more than an extended exile. (And no matter what they want to believe, they were callous and immature.) 

After the accident, they had tried to stay the course but the scandal of Bunny’s accidental death and the Charles’ breakdown had ruined everything. (Richard can hear Bunny’s droll voice accusing him of selfishness.) Julian abandoned them and nothing was the same. 

Later the four of them are sprawled about the library, drunk on gin and the air blue with cigarette smoke. It feels like they are kids again until Richard looks up and sees Bunny’s face looking through the window. His anger radiates coldly through the glass. When Richard gasps, he knows he is not the only one who sees the apparition. Camilla flinches, Francis drops his glass and Henry alone remains stoic.

“You see him too?”

Richard is never sure who asked that question or even in what language it was asked. The gist is the same. They had all seen him and they were afraid to mention it. In a way it felt like some fucking _Wuthering Heights_ garbage. Instead of Cathy at the window it was Bunny. And it immediately became boring and trite. How absolutely pedestrian of Bunny. Even Charles wasn’t haunting them and he had more to haunt them over.

(It was unspoken but they all knew not to talk about what happened. There was nothing to hide but it was traumatic. 

It was a sunny day. They had drunkenly decided to seize the moment and go on a nature walk - or hike. Bunny called it a hike and the others a walk. It was why they were all drunk on champagne and gin and why Charles was high. In all honesty they had no business being out there. Camilla was in a skirt and improper shoes for a hike.

Bunny had insisted and since they had been at odds the others felt they owed it to him. It doesn’t matter why but Richard hadn’t lied about everything. Bunny knew and was disgusted. Yes he thought to use it against the others but he was also loyal.

What Richard remembers is that someone slipped - he thinks it was Camilla with her improper shoes - Bunny went to help her. And although he helped her, Bunny fell. None of them were in any shape to climb down a steep slope to see if Bunny was alive. He was unresponsive to their calls and cries.

They left the area to get help for Bunny and Camilla who had hurt her ankle in the accident. 

But they were drunk. They were inexperienced. They got lost. The clock was working against them. And when they got back to the campus and found someone who would listen, it was too late. 

The scandal was how inebriated they were. And then the fact that a prestigious college allowed students who were underage to drink so heavily. Of course the rampant drug use came out. And Hampden was the centre of an academic scandal. Bunny was forgotten amidst the scandal that ended up painting a picture of debauchery at the private collegiate system in the United States.)

“He can’t come in.”

Francis sounds tired. He doesn’t explain and it doesn’t matter. In the end they all decide to go to bed. The most that Richard hears that night is the occasional pounding on the door. Bunny was always a terrible bore.

In the morning, Richard barely makes it to the toilet as he stumbles from his bed. The gin from last night is expelled in violence. When he’s done, a cool glass of water is thrust towards him. It takes him a moment to realize it’s Camilla. She was never a caretaker before - that was always Henry. 

Later Richard finds his way down to the kitchen. Tea and toast are set in front of him as Francis apologizes for not realizing Richard’s stint in rehab. No one says anything but he feels so middle class in comparison. Francis tries to fill the awkward silence about how his estranged wife has taken to spas, yogas and green smoothies. Camilla laughs about how puritanical it sounds. The fact that Francis is married makes Richard feel worse. He only hopes that the real marriage is better than the fictional one. (Henry will later explain that Francis and his wife are the same and once their heir had been born they had amicably pursued their own lives. As long as there is nothing scandalous neither cares what the other does.)

Richard feels guilt. It’s oppressive and cloying. He can feel the physical absence of Bunny and Charles. What have they done?

_Nothing old boy. The sin of omission._

Richard startled at the sound of Bunny’s voice until he realizes that his mind has supplied it and Bunny is still missing. 

“What are we going to do about Bunny?”

It’s blunt and it feels like he has just thrown a hand grenade in the room. It’s the hangover and exhaustion. Everyone stills has it saying the name three times will bring the spectre of Bunny before them.

There is a period of silence. Richard fears rejection like he once did when he asked Julian to let him into his program. And then suddenly the silence is broken by harsh Greek words spoken thrice confirming it is time they do something. Richard’s voiced agreement is an afterthought. Henry asks for a day or two. 

If they stay in a group of three (or four) they can enjoy the grounds. Camilla suggests a picnic on the lake that Francis and Richard agree to. His duties at Hampden beckon but Richard ignores them in favour of the sticky heat and dream like quality of the lake. Ever since he wrote his novel, there are memories that he can’t recall if they were manufactured, a dream or reality. That afternoon will taken on that same gauzy feel years from now. In the moment Richard enjoys it. He feels free and alive for the first time since Bunny died.

The day that Henry picks for the ritual is cold and damp. It feels like summer has faded away, even though there is another month left. Richard feels the excesses of the last few days. Still he goes through the prescribed motions. Ritually cleansing himself and eventually donning a toga made of a crisp white bed linen. Francis helps him to make it perfect. 

Under the moon, the four survivors stand in a circular pattern. Each hold a lit candle and the air is perfumed with the scent of burning wax and the damp earth. No one has raised the question as to why it’s Bunny and not Charles. No one needs to. Out of all of them, Bunny was the most alive. He was the one with plans, with a life. Richard might have been on the periphery but he fit in better than Bunny ever did. 

Bunny appears before them. In the middle of the circle. He is solid and forever young. His face is twisted in hate. His voice is malicious.

_Great party. Thanks for the invite._

The living ignore him as they intone a litany written in Greek by Henry. Richard had been too lazy to bother translating it. He trusts in Henry to fix this mess like Henry has always fixed their messes. 

_So this is it?_

One by one they blow out their candles and turn away from Bunny. Until it’s just Richard and Bunny. The expression on Bunny’s face turns to despair. 

_Please!_

Bunny’s voice is quiet and pleading but Richard just wants silence. He doesn’t want to kill Bunny all over again and he doubts the others do as well. But he can’t keep drinking himself to death. Earlier Camilla had looked pale as if she was withering away into a shadow, Francis’ skin was tinged yellow and even Henry look tired.

_Please, I want to live._

There is something wrong with a ghost begging to live. Even now when Bunny has taken on a solid appearance and looks more alive than any of the actual humans. Bunny looks at him one last time before Richard blows out the candle and turns away. There is a loud desperate sob. The trees shudder with a sudden gust of cold wind. And it’s done.

It’s his final morning at the country home and he wakes up to find Henry on the foot of his bed. He hopes that he hides his surprise well. Henry was always a distant satellite that the others revolves around. Even Bunny. Richard had always thought that Henry and Camilla would wind up together if she was free from Charles’ toxic hold. But she had mentioned a lover briefly. A woman. And Henry had remained separate from the others.

“You won’t be alone in teaching at Hampden.”

Henry grips Richard’s cold ankle. Pinning him to the bed as he explains that the college finds themselves without a competent teacher for the classics. Richard doesn’t need to be told that Henry’s style will be vastly different from Julian’s. Julian was the beloved uncle expelling on concepts that belonged in another era. Henry will be remote, desirable but stern. Students will learn or not based on their will to learn.

“Francis has instructed us to stay in this house rather than taking apartments in town. I fear he worries about it rotting into obscurity.”

Richard’s heart is in his mouth, his body achingly cold except for where Henry is touching him. He isn’t sure if he can stomach being so close yet so distant from Henry. Long gone is his middle class objection to sexuality. He likes men and women. He doesn’t care what others think. Although he does care what Henry thinks. 

“Camilla thinks I should force you to stay, to take care of you.”

Richard’s stomach curdles at the thought. He doesn’t need Henry to play the nurse maid. He will survive and he moves as if to shake Henry off. But Henry’s hand tightens around his ankle.

“I wonder why you are so offended by that. You clearly need someone to look after you. Is it because I never acknowledged the novel? Do you need me to court you in some quaint Victorian fashion?”

Richard freezes, unable to breathe. Is Henry offering what he thinks he is? 

He looks at Henry for the first time since he realized Henry was sitting at the foot of his bed. His crisp white shirt is unbuttoned at the collar, his charcoal slacks look wrinkled as if Henry hadn't gone to sleep the night before. His suspender braces are hanging down instead of being properly worn. His chin is covered with stubble and most telling, Henry's hair is dishevelled as if he had run his fingers through it several times before reaching a decision of sorts. 

Henry simple arches an eyebrow at Richard as if asking if a question. _Well?_

Richard answers Henry’s unspoken question in ancient Greek. 

 

((END))


End file.
